Role Reversal
by 9r7g5h
Summary: How Laura being a vampire and Carmilla being human could work out. Carmilla: The Series.
1. Chapter 1

AN: I really don't think people know how much thought I've put into Vamp!Laura AU, because here's the thing: if you're going to switch Laura and Carmilla, you need to switch everything about them. Not just their places, but their entire situations, because so much of who a person is is based on their experiences and the people who were in their lives.

Disclaimer: I do not own Carmilla: The Series. U by Kotex does.

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><p>Instead of the Dean being the vampire, Mr. Hollis would be. He would be the four thousand year old vampire who serves the Light. Who, every twenty years, sacrifices five human beings to the Light to keep the world from falling.<p>

But the thing is, Mr. Hollis is the kind of man who would continuously believe, no matter what horrors he saw, in the goodness of humanity. Knowing that the only requirement for the Light's sacrifices is that they are alive and human, instead of five random innocents, he would sacrifice five criminals. Five humans who had committed horrible crimes against their own people-five humans who barely deserve that title; they would be fed to the Light, so that a little bit more evil was gone.

And one day, while traveling around the world in the late sixteen hundreds, he finds himself in a small little town. Perhaps his carriage broke a wheel, perhaps he's just tired and needs to rest for the day. Either way, he finds himself in this little town, barely a collection of mud huts, and he has to stay.

Half way through his stay, while he's walking around while his carriage is being repaired and he's seeing if this little group of hovels has anything to offer, he hears a baby crying. And crying.

And crying.

He searches for the source of this sound and finds that one of the huts is an orphanage- a dozen children are stuffed into this one room hut, an old woman their only guardian. An illness had passed through the village, killing a handful of families; these children are the ones who lost both parents and aren't old enough to fend for themselves.

The last death was three days ago, when a young unmarried woman, heavily pregnant, died after giving birth to her daughter. The daughter that is now screaming, screaming and being ignored by everyone there.

Mr. Hollis, being who he is, goes to comfort the child and finds that she hasn't been fed for two days; there is no wet nurse, none that will willingly feed her, at least, because her mother might have survived the illness had she not been with child, and so this little girl has been abandoned. Left in this hole to die without a name.

This is unacceptable. Mr. Hollis takes the girl with him and finds a woman who can nurse her and is willing to sell her milk to this 'cursed' infant. He pays her well, and the moment his carriage is fixed, he leaves with the little girl he's named Laura.

Once he's traveled far enough away that no one from Laura's past could ever find her, he finds another village (again, a small set of huts that barely keep out the cold in winter) and hires a wet nurse to permanently care for Laura as well as her own son. He hires the woman's husband as his personal manservant, and the two leave to get what they need.

Through Mr. Hollis's _very _deep pockets, the two come back a few months later with hundreds of people, all of whom get to work on building the mansion Mr. Hollis has decided to live and raise his newest 'minion' in (because why else would he come back? He could set the family up with enough money to take care of little Laura and just go, never looking back. But having someone who would follow him to the end of the world and never look at him scared, someone who loved him despite the monster he was? That was worth returning).

Within six months the mansion is built, the forest has been cleared and turned into grasslands for the sheep and cattle Mr. Hollis bought as an investment, and the entire village has been razed to the ground and rebuilt with stone and wood and proper roads.

Because Mr. Hollis held Laura in his arms and watched her as she smiled up at him and tried to grab his chin, and she slipped from being a minion to his daughter, the little girl he would do anything for.

So he builds a perfect world for her. A house full of beauty and comforts for her to grow up in (he quickly relocated the wet nurse, her husband, and their children the moment the mansion was done), hundreds of servant, animals, and care takers who love her (they're paid more than well for their services, and will do anything to take care of the daughter of the man who single-handedly pulled them from poverty), and a village near by that's just as beautiful as their home (there is no poverty, no hunger or illness; the city has the finest doctors and the greatest artisans, and even those who sweep the shit from the streets are richer on their own than some of the villages nearby combined).

He creates a perfect world for his little Laura to grow up in, so she'll never have to experience the pain he knows is out there.

And grow up little Laura does. When she gets older, she spends her days running through the halls with the little boy (let's call him Timmy) she nursed with. Laura and Timmy bother the cooks for cookies, beg the caretakers to let them ride on the backs of the cows when they're moving between the pastures, and constantly go into town with Timmy's Mother/Laura's Wet Nurse to watch the glass blowers or the gold shapers or the candle makers practice their crafts (they both often leave with some little nick knack, like a glass flower or golden ring or candle shaped like a man's smiling face).

Mr. Hollis spends his time watching his little Laura grow up; a blessing and a curse, for he knows, one day, she will get old and die, for how can he turn her into a monster like he is? How could he spend every day for the rest of eternity looking at this child and knowing he killed her, just so he wouldn't be alone?

When Laura is fourteen Mr. Hollis starts discussing the prospect of marriage; there are many young men who have come to him, asking for an arrangement to be made. All of whom he's turned down, of course, for he refuses to force Laura into anything she doesn't want. But it is something that needs to be considered, so one day, when he's in his study and she's reading by the fire, he brings up the idea to her.

Laura, all her life, has told her father everything. Her thoughts and her dreams, her hopes and her fears, everything. So, when Laura becomes very uncomfortable with the idea of marriage, Mr. Hollis becomes concerned. Why would she keep something, anything from him? It takes some prodding, but, eventually, he gets it out of her.

It's not the idea of marriage that distresses Laura. It's the idea of marriage to a _man_, and everything that would come with it.

Mr. Hollis just smiles; at four thousand years old, he has seen everything there is to see. So, he promises Laura that, when it is time to for her to marry, he'll find someone like her- a man who is interested in other men, someone who would be her friend and husband in name, but nothing more. If they wanted children, they could adopt. When, eventually, she found a woman she would fall in love with, no one would bat an eye if she took this woman to be her personal servant, since everyone would assume she was only a servant and Laura spent her nights with her husband.

He describes this entire ruse, memorizing every detail for when he would need to enact it in a few years, and decided that every word was worth it as Laura, his little Laura, smiles at him the way she does that makes him grateful that wheel broke in that little village all those years ago.

Laura continues to grow, happily encased in the world her father has built for her; she hears about the terrors and horrors of the world outside their city and estates, and while she's curious and wishes to see the world, her father's promise that they will see everything she wishes when she's older appeases her. For now, at least.

She's not entirely safe from pain, though. She has her fair share of bumps and bruises, colds and a horrible bout with the flu that almost steals her life. But over all of these she prevails.

Over all physical pain she's prevailed, but then she's fourteen and convinced she's in love with the glass maker's daughter, convinced that the daughter is in love with her, only to find out the same day that she is going to ask the girl to become her 'personal maid' that the girl is in love with someone else. A young man, one of the pie maker's sons, and they are to be married in a month.

Her heart is broken, to the point that she's sobbing into Mr. Hollis's chest and he has to restrain himself from murdering the foolish children who did this to his little girl. For days she mourns, spending her time sobbing, refusing to eat, almost making herself sick with grief from this rejection of the first person she loved.

But again, just like the physical pain, she eventually heals. She spends time with Timmy (who, when she finally comes out of her room, is found asleep before the door; he's been sleeping there this entire time, just waiting for his friend to come back to him), visits the animals in the field (one of the men presents her with a puppy, a tiny little fluff ball who never leaves Laura's side), and into town (but never to the glass maker's or the pie baker's).

Laura grows up. She's a few months away from being eighteen, and between the 'surprise' birthday party Mr. Hollis has decided to throw and the sacrifice to the Light coming up soon, he is a very busy man.

Again, he refuses to sacrifice the innocent to the Light, so instead he takes a few day's leave and travels between some of the surrounding towns, finding five criminals that he buys from the prisons and brings to his home, where he locks them in their own private room in a special wing that he specifically had built for these five. For while he is a monster he is not cruel, and he will make sure the last month of these people's lives are wonderful.

He tends to their every need himself, and forbids that anyone else ever go near that wing.

Laura doesn't listen. She's stupid and curious and believes the worse danger is getting your heart broken, and so when Mr. Hollis finishes tending to the people, she sneaks in and tries to talk to them.

The first won't speak to her. Refuses to say a single word no matter how much she needles him. Keeps quiet the entire time, because he killed every single one of those people for the sin he knew they carried, and he didn't want to again. Didn't want to find out what sin this sweet child held, the reason he would have to slit her throat the moment he got out, so he kept quiet.

The next woman cursed her out and ran her off. She too wanted nothing to do with Laura; she had long since accepted her fate, and just wanted to get on with it. Mr. Hollis had promised that there would be no pain, which was more than could be said of the gallows. All she wanted was no pain.

The next two lied to her. Promised they were innocent, that it was all a misunderstanding. That Laura had to let them out, had to be a good girl and get the key from her father to keep him from making a horrible mistake.

She was smart enough not to believe them, and avoided those doors after.

The fifth, though, he was clever. When Laura came to his door, he didn't deny who he was-he had killed, and so was being punished for it. But he showed an interest in Laura, asked about her day and her friends and her pet, about her hopes for the future and the plans she had had in the past and everything that made Laura herself. He spoke sweetly, much like Mr. Hollis himself, and, slowly, Laura began to trust him.

When she finally asked for detail about what he had done, he told her the truth (at least, a version of it). Yes, he had killed a woman, but accidentally, out of self-defense. He had walked into the wrong home after a few drinks with some friends, she had immediately come at him with a knife without giving him the chance to leave, and he had pushed her away. She fell, hit her head, and the sheriff arrived a few minutes later to make the arrest.

(There had been a knife, yes, that was true. A knife she had grabbed after he finally finished with her. He had expected her to curl up on that pile of straw and start thinking of names for the child he had undoubtedly planted in her belly, but instead she had grabbed a knife and tried to kill him. He had pushed her away so she fell, that again had been true. But after she hit her head she hit it again and again and again, until her skull gave in and he had to be torn off of her by the returning husband and sons.

One of his happier memories, feeling his fingers stick together from the red and peeling them apart.)

Laura, who had never known the world and what it could hold, accepted this telling of the tale as true, and began to believe that, perhaps, Father had made a mistake in claiming this man a criminal. He was sweet and kind and gentle of word; could he truly be blamed for a mistake?

Mr. Hollis, like always, finished caring for his prisoners before heading on out. There were still a lot of things that needed to be ready for his little Laura's birthday, and there was no time to waste.

So focused on his task was he that Mr. Hollis didn't notice when the key to the rooms went missing, along with his daughter.

It wasn't until a little while later, when he was searching for Laura to get her opinion on colors (it was a surprise party, yes, but that didn't mean she couldn't have a say in the colors of her tablecloths) that he realized Timmy was in the house and no one else had seen Laura for hours.

Mr. Hollis knows his daughter; knows that she's curious and sheltered and knows nothing about the world outside of the little town she grew up in. Knows that she could easily be pulled in by the man behind that door and the sweet lies he told her.

The dog is dead by the time Mr. Hollis gets to the room, its teeth barred in a bloody snarl and its neck snapped, broken by bloody hands that are attacking his daughter. One around her neck, Laura's face turning blue as she weakly tries to remove the grip keeping her pinned against the wall, while the other is under her dress, its owner whispering in her ear everything he was going to do to her before he let her die.

He doesn't, can't, think- in less than a moment both Laura and Mr. Hollis are covered in blood, drenched from the limbs he tore and the corpse he destroyed. A waste of a death, for he refuses to drink from this creature after he's done, instead just throws the remains across the room and waits.

Because in less than a second, Mr. Hollis revealed himself to be the monster he truly is by saving Laura from the one she believed didn't exist. Showed who he truly is to the one person he had sworn would never know.

But Laura doesn't care. The man covered in blood standing before her, with bits of skin and pieces of flesh between his teeth and under his nails, is still her father, still the man who's cared for and loved her for her entire life; who has only done everything he could to protect her and keep her safe.

She hugs him as close as she can, ignoring the remains that covers the room, and continues to hold him until they both stop crying.

When they're finally able to form complete sentences, Mr. Hollis summons Laura's former Wet Nurse, her husband, and Timmy to them. The Wet Nurse takes Laura to get a bath and have the dressed burned (as beautiful as it is, the blood will never come out. And even if it did, she would never be able to bring herself to wear it again). The husband, Mr. Hollis' personal manservant, who has known for years what his master is, starts making preparations to have the body buried and the room cleaned and redone, all evidence of the man erased from sight. Timmy, who is just learning who his family serves, helps (only because Mr. Hollis told his manservant what happened the moment Laura was out of the room, and Timmy realizes he almost lost his very best friend. Once he knows this, he's more than happy to help).

When they're both cleaned up and the servants have gotten started on tearing apart the room so it can be rebuilt clean and new, Mr. Hollis sits down with Laura and tells her his own secret- he's a vampire, a monster, and he would understand if she hated him. He starts blabbering on about how he has a handful of marriage proposals, all young men much like herself, who would make good friends and good pretend husbands. He talks about how he understands if she wants nothing to do with him, for who would? Who would ever want to be near someone like him, a monster that preys upon the innocent in the dead of night, forced to take life from others.

He explains about the Light, how it demands the lives of five every twenty years, and how the process to prepare them for the sacrifice changes them. How, by the time he's done, they're willing to walk into the Light and die.

He explains his past, who he is and how he came to be, and just keeps on talking until there are no more words, until the night's long since passed and morning has been present for hours. He keeps talking, trying to put off the inevitable rejection Laura would give, until his voice finally falls silent and he can't anymore.

Laura, after remaining quiet this entire time, asks him to turn her.

She asks him to turn her because Laura realizes she's weak. She's weak, reliant on others to take care of her, and had her father walked in a few moments later, she would be dead. She's been a fool to believe that nothing bad could ever happen because Father and the world seemed to love her, and it's time that she's come to her senses.

Besides, even with everything he's told her, how could spending eternity with him be a bad thing?

At first he refuses; Mr. Hollis doesn't want this life for his child, even though she herself points out that he doesn't kill often, that he's perfected the ability to drink without killing and he could teach her. They didn't have to be monsters, and could spend their time protecting others.

He still refuses, but only until after she turns eighteen.

A few days later, Mr. Hollis and Laura leave for another village to find a sacrifice to replace the one Mr. Hollis killed. Laura tags along to finally see what the real world is like, so she can look another piece of evil in the eyes and understand that they are human, and are soon to die. Mr. Hollis needs her to understand what the world is like if she is going to spend eternity in it, and he wants her to fully understand the decision she's going to make.

Laura, even after she meets the replacement, after she sees the constant starvation and poverty most of the world lived in, even after witnessing the sacrifice herself a month later (tied to a pole so she didn't follow the dancing sacrifices over the edge of the pit), she still chooses to be turned.

Because the Light devoured the evil, her Father only drank from those who had committed crimes or, if an innocent became involved, never let them die, and being turned would give her the chance she needed to be strong and make a difference in her world.

So, life continues on as normal. Laura spends her time with Timmy, discussing her choice and how things were going to change because of what she had decided to do. How he would one day die while she stayed forever eighteen, and how she would never have to feel fear again. How, once she was turned, things would never be the same again.

Mr. Hollis threw himself into planning Laura's birthday party. It was the last his little girl was ever going to have, so it had to be one she would remember throughout all the ages she would exist.

It truly was magnificent. A feast that fed hundreds of people, every single person who worked on the estate or lived in the village. Presents piled higher then she was tall, that took half of the night for her to open and thank those who had given the item to her. Dancing and laughter, even a version of the Waltz that she did with Timmy, much to many people's scandal. For the entire day, she lived the human life she would soon be leaving behind.

The next night Laura fell ill, and a few days later, as far as everyone knew, she passed.

Mr. Hollis stayed for two more weeks, a weary, exhausted figure to any who saw him. Many feared he would go the same way as his daughter, to an early grave brought on a by a broken heart. He had lost his daughter, the only person in the world he truly cared for.

How could he continue on, when she was all he had lived for?

For two weeks he held on, just long enough to find a justice of the peace to oversee his will. Mr. Hollis turns over all of his estates and its yearly income to his manservant, Timmy's father, and makes sure that Timmy is his heir, to inherit everything that was once his when his father dies. For two weeks he stays, packing only just what he absolutely needed- a few pairs of clothing, some nick knacks he might need in the future, and a number of dresses that were once Laura's (for the poor man still believed she was alive).

For two weeks he remained before climbing into the carriage that had brought him here all those years ago and, without a single word, left.

Left, as most people believed, to find someplace far away to die in peace.

Little did they know that, a few hours after he left, Mr. Hollis pulled over, opened the door, and found Laura-a new, strong, alive Laura who was thrumming with the blood of the animals she had been hunting for the last two weeks to sate the new born blood lust-waiting for him.

Waiting for him so they could continue the life they had left behind anew.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** Sorry this took so long. With classes back in full swing, it's hard to find some time to just sit down and write. I hope you like part 2, though, and hopefully part 3 is able to be written soon!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Carmilla: The Series. U by Kotex does.

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><p>For months, Mr. Hollis makes her wait. Makes her wait until she knows how to hunt, can chase down the fastest prey with her strength and her wit, making sure it never lived longer then it took for her to find it. Until he could teach her to hide the bodies, always animals, so their secret would be safe. Until he had taught her to catch and drink and <em>not<em> kill, leaving the deer in a drunken, blood loss stupor instead of the corpse they were used to.

Mr. Hollis makes her wait until Laura knows just how much of a monster she now is, and until she learns how not to be.

It was only after these lessons had been learned that they started to make their way towards the closest town, arriving in the dead of night so they could wash away the grime that came from living in the woods for almost an entire year. Even though they had done their best to maintain themselves, there is only so much that could be done in the middle of the forest, and blood is not the easiest liquid to remove from cloth. So an inn keeper who couldn't care less who slept in the beds, a washer girl more than well paid for her silence, and within a few days they look less like ghouls and more like proper members of society once again.

Members of society who were there only just long enough to test if Laura had enough control to be around humans.

Mr. Hollis breaks the carriage wheel himself this time, ensuring that a three, perhaps even four day layover in their travels (to his mother's home estates, if anyone asks) is guaranteed, giving Laura the chance she needs. The chance to see if everything he has taught her stays when she's surrounded by prey much more enticing then an elk or buck, prey that can talk and smile and break down the strongest of barriers before you even realize they've gotten too close.

Animals, at least, know what they are. Animals run, flee, try to find some safe cavern to curl up in until the guaranteed death that they are passes them over. Humans, on the other hand… humans almost seemed to long for them.

It was hard; hard for Laura to keep her fangs withdrawn and her smile natural, lest she give away who they are and begin the rumors of walking dead (her father had told her about the last time vampires have been confirmed to exist. The result had horrified her-not because a single vampire had been harmed, but because the humans had turned on each other so quickly it sickened her. It was that kind of evil they were trying to fight, to rid the world of, and if knowledge of her existence caused it, then she had to make sure no one knew). It was the hardest thing she had ever done, not draining the person closest to her dry every time they glanced her way or spoke or breathed, harder than it had been to stop drinking the blood flowing from the deer she had chased down, her rightful prey.

It's hard, but Laura prevails, and when her and Mr. Hollis break into the prison later that night, she's able to stop herself from killing the men she drinks from, instead leaving them light headed and believing it was all just a dream.

Laura passes the test, and with that behind her, her life truly begins.

Just like he promised they would, they travel. All across Europe, visiting every single town they can find, Mr. Hollis and Laura slowly make their way across the continent. They taste the foods, see the sights, and hunt down the men and women who would dare to do harm to their neighbors, leaving them passed out on the stoops of the law enforcement each night they stay in a town.

No one notices the puncture wounds that cover their sides or the back of their thighs when they're thrown in prison, and if anyone ever notices that Laura and Mr. Hollis never truly eat, at the very most nibbling the edges of the plates of food they buy to only gain a taste, no one thinks to ask.

For eighteen and a half years they travel. Laura loves it; after a lifetime of living on her father's estates and being protected by an entire city of people, it's a refreshing feeling to see something unknown, to not know the faces that walk besides you as you try to find your way back to the inn or store, neither of which you've ever been in before. There's a thrill in learning something new, something that can't come from books or governesses, and the options were finally there for Laura to discover.

Laura loves to travel, but nineteen and a half years after she had been turned, Mr. Hollis forces her back home, back to the estates she had grown up on and the town she had loved, all so they could find the newest of the sacrifices.

Mr. Hollis takes care of the search. Although Laura has more than proven herself capable, for the last four thousand years he has been the one to feed the Light, the sole provider of the sacrifices, and while one day Laura will be by his side as he chooses the souls to give, for now, he goes alone. Leaving Laura at the estates, face to face with her dear, much older Timmy.

Much has changed about the two, but the fact that they are, and always will be, friends has not.

The now middle-aged Timmy meets them at the door, smile wide and arms open as they cross the threshold that used to be theirs, making it clear that they were more than guests. They're family, long lost but now returned, family that hadn't aged a day and he couldn't wait to get caught up with.

Mr. Hollis takes his leave shortly after the initial pleasantries are over, his manner and the cryptic hints he leaves about their soon to arrive guests all Timmy needs to know about the reason for their visit. He calmly mentions that the rooms shall be ready and offers Mr. Hollis a horse, waiting until the man had disappeared on its back before leading Laura to his study, where she had once spent her days reading by the fire.

For hours they talk, about the places she had been and the people she had met, about the young woman Timmy had taken for his wife and the hoard of children they were raising, about how the town they had been raised in had changed so much yet was still the same. About the books they had read and the art they had seen. About the thousands of thoughts they had had over the almost twenty years they have been apart, thoughts they had wanted nothing more than to share with their very best friend but couldn't.

Laura told him what it was like to be a vampire, to suck the life from the ones she had hunted until they could barely breathe, chests heaving as she drained them almost dry (the few slip ups she had had since she was turned; no deaths thanks to her father, but she had come close). How the strength and the smells and the ability to walk through the night knowing no one could see was almost enough to leave her drunk, as drunk as a vampire could get without draining a brewery. How soon her father would teach her how to transform, to reshape herself from human to animal, a useful skill when they would need to one day disappear from the earth, their human forms too well known to not be caught.

Timmy tells her what it's like to grow old, so different from the growing up they had done together. To wake up to his first gray hair, to realize the wrinkles that lined his cheeks weren't always there, to feel himself unable to life the bags he had carried his entire life, his back physically unable to take it. To carry the weight of the world on his shoulders when the men and women he had hired look towards him when things go wrong to put them to right. How much he almost wished Mr. Hollis had never given him this responsibility to take after his father had died, because what if he failed?

He tried to explain how it had felt to hold his first born in his arms, but words failed him (the only time Laura felt envy for her friend, that she would never experience being a parent, watching a child she had birthed grow into their own adult. A small envy, for the promise of a thousand years to help keep the children of others safe was more than enough compensation).

Timmy tells her how their world has changed: both his parents died, and he promises to take her to their grave soon, so she can pay her respects to her former Nurse and her father's former Man Servant. How their town has grown even more, edged on by the wild success they've been experiencing. There had been an illness, one that the doctors couldn't fight, but they came out alright on the other side, only a handful of the old and the very young lost.

Life continued on without her, and for a few moments, Laura's sad. She doesn't regret her decision, not at all, but still the feeling settles deep in her bones.

It's not until the sun rises that they part, him to get some work done before he sleeps and her to the room he's always kept prepared for guests, with a soft bed and clean clothes and a maid who asks if she wants a bath drawn before she retires (who also becomes a quick snack; just a few sips from an offered wrist, for apparently Timmy keeps at least a few members of his staff informed about the types of visitors he could be expecting. It's not hard to feed from her; the maid is lovely, she's willing, and when Laura licks the wound closed before sliding into the tub, her face is flushed and it's clear she's more than eager to please).

She sleeps well, unknowingly exhausted from being on the road for such a long time, time that she hadn't even realized was wearing down on her. It's late afternoon when she wakes again, the same maid from before there to offer her other wrist before helping Laura to dress. Timmy's waiting outside the room when they're done, a young man standing next to him, waiting so they can take a trip into town so Laura can see just how much it's changed for herself.

It takes a while for her to agree, out of fear of being recognized by those who think her dead, but Timmy reassures her by giving her a veil, claiming that, if any ask, she's from a far off country, traveling with her companions to see the world. That she's a guest to their town, and no one would think to give her more than a second glance.

She finally agrees, hides her face behind the semi-sheer cloth, and follows Timmy out of the house, off the estates, to see how her home has changed.

She almost doesn't recognize it.

Streets twisted and turned, leading to alleys she had never seen, never known, couldn't even being to fathom as they lead through the newly created Crafter's road. Where once homes and businesses lived side by side, they were now segregated, each to their own section, their own world, expected to be kept separate by the inhabitants of both. Where once she could have stood and watched the bread maker bake and the smith forge horseshoes and a dozen others practice their art, now they were shunted to the side and closed off. Stacked on top of one another like animals, shoving for space to make their products, there was none of the wonder she remembered.

Even the residential areas were almost no better, despite what Timmy said. And in a way, he was right. The city had grown out, spread until it covered the fields that had once fed them, but it had also grown up. The sky could barely be seen between the towering roofs, roofs that housed two, three, four families, where once there had been more than enough space for one family per. The illness he had spoken of didn't surprise her as she watched almost half a dozen children spill out of one door, running to classes or work to keep their families fed from their apprenticeships. The city was thriving, yes, but from the backs of the poor her father never would have allowed.

Timmy might have been the Lord of the area, but he held about as much power as the lowest of the low, unable to keep the city the paradise her father had first built it as.

After that, Laura rarely left the estate, going into town only to hunt on the (thankfully) few whom tried to prey on their neighbors. Although she loved to see the world, see how things were different and how they had changed, she had never thought that would happen to home. That Silas could be almost unrecognizable in the almost two decades she had been gone.

But change Silas had, and it almost hurt to see.

The estates had never changed, Timmy made sure of that. Although the faces had shifted, former employees replaced by the younger, more vibrant lads, the paths between the grazing fields remained the same. Cows and sheep and even a few goats still dotted the pastures, clustered around the sweetest patches of grass or the watering holes as dogs made their laps, ensuring that nothing came close to the fences keeping the animals inside. The gardens were flourishing, just had they had been the last time she had set eyes upon them, the food that would feed the household and all its inhabitants growing rapidly under the peaceful sun.

She could close her eyes and still find the paths through the woods she and Timmy had once played on when they were young, a little bit of normalcy she was thankful for.

Timmy eventually introduced her to his wife, only a few years younger than he was, a woman who took their explanation of how they knew each other with only a few moments of terrified silence, her eyes wide as she realized the tales he had once told her about the previous master of the house had been true. A few moments for her to realize just who Laura was, _what _Laura was, and then she was done.

She offers Laura some tea, asks if she needs to fetch a servant so she could feed, and when Laura politely turns the offer away, sits quietly with them as they talk. She's judging her, Laura knows, but she can't bring herself to care. For so long as she keeps the secret, so long as the word 'vampire' never crosses her lips and exposes her, Laura is happy to let the woman Timmy loves judge her.

So long as the secret was safe, all was well.

The same happens when Laura meets Timmy's oldest son, his heir, a bright young lad who had heard the stories from childhood and always believed, never questioning the things his father told him. He had always known that the darkness held secrets, and Laura was just a confirmation of what he already knew.

Within a day, he had promised to continue to serve her after his father passes, and that his own children would do the same for as long as the line continued. So long as his blood lived in the Silas Manor, she would always be welcome to come and serve the Light.

Mr. Hollis returns a few weeks later, five criminals in tow, ready to be thrown into the rooms that Timmy had prepared for them. Rooms that had seen very little use in the last twenty years, since the last group of mortals had been devoured.

Timmy insists on meeting them, after Mr. Hollis and Laura had moved them into their new quarters, neither bothering to listen to the lies that fell from their lips during the transfer. He wants to know their crimes, to know for sure that the ones to be fed were truly the cause of so much harm that they deserve it (he knows the evil, has no qualms about ridding the world of a little bit more, but parts of him have trouble accepting so easily that soon, these five souls will be gone. He has to be sure).

Neither of them can refuse him. Instead, with them both standing guard to make sure nothing happens to him, they allow Timmy to make his way down the line, talking to each of the five Mr. Hollis brought back.

It doesn't take long for Timmy, pale and shaken from the stories the most truthful and willing to take member of the five had told him, to return to them, all doubt gone from his mind. Even if the stories the woman had told him had been falsehoods, the very fact that she _wanted_ to do those things, that she had been smiling the entire time she'd been talking, had convinced him.

The sacrifice goes off without a hitch, the five souls dancing into the light that called towards them, willingly letting themselves be enveloped as they fell from the cliff's edge.

Even after the ceremony is over, though, Mr. Hollis and Laura stay. Not because they're reluctant to leave- after seeing the state their home had fallen into, even though the estates remain the same, they're eager to move on, to continue their travels. Seeing Timmy and his kin had been nice, but that didn't change the sorrow they had felt at seeing their home change so much in such a short period of time.

It had made Laura think about how it would be different a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years from now, and the idea had been unimaginable.

Instead they stay because it is a safe place for Mr. Hollis to continue his lessons, to continue teaching Laura how to hone the skills she had been using instinctually for the last twenty years. To strengthen her control against the creature within, to keep her humanity on the surface so it would force itself through when she was at her weakest. To keep herself in check, so that, when he continued onto the next lesson, she wouldn't lose herself to the creature she became.

For months they work in secret, Mr. Hollis trying and failing to explain the shift she needed to feel, the change from herself to herself that made all the sense in his mind but none in the words he tried to find. The pain and freedom that would come from shedding her human skin, which would allow them to move on from the home that barely seemed known.

For months they practice, keeping to themselves, discussing their plans with Timmy; they were done with Europe, at least for now. Laura still wanted to see the world, and Mr. Hollis knew of a ship that was leaving in a few weeks' time for other shores. They would be on it, maybe, if Laura could learn.

She does, and Timmy figures it out when he finds their rooms empty and one of his boys come to tell him about the strangest sight: an old bear had been seen at the edge of the field, wandering peacefully back into the woods. It wasn't the bear that caught their attention, though- it was the small white rabbit perched on its back, happily riding along as the old brown bear went into the woods that they found strange.

Timmy just laughs and shrugs them off, for he knows his friend and her father, no matter the form they take.

A little sad that Laura and Mr. Hollis just left without saying good bye, Timmy goes about his day, working hard to fix some of the issues he realizes he's let slide, issues that he saw Mr. Hollis and Laura being disappointed over; issues he's ashamed at having pushed away and forgotten about.

He works to fix these things, and when he finally goes to bed, the maid who had been serving Laura and Mr. Hollis brings him a note.

_I'll see you soon, my friend. – L. _

Enclosed is a lock of rabbit fur Timmy keeps on his bedside table for the rest of his life. A constant reminder of his very best friend, and the fact that she would, one day, return to Silas Manor.

A return where Timmy wouldn't be there to welcome her, a fact he hoped she'd forgive him for.


End file.
